Business and home premises are commonly equipped with a security system for detecting alarm conditions and reporting these to a monitoring center. One of the primary functions of the monitoring center is to notify a human operator when one or more alarm conditions have been sensed by detectors installed at a monitored premises.
Detectors may vary from relatively simple hard-wired detectors, such as door or window contacts to more sophisticated battery operated ones, such as motion and glass break detectors. The detectors may each report to an alarm control panel at the premises. The control panel is typically installed in a safe location and is connected to a power supply. The control panel is further in communication with the individual detectors to communicate with or receive signals from individual detectors. The communication between the alarm control panel and the detectors can be one or two way, and may be wired or wireless.
The control panel, in turn, communicates from the premises to the monitoring center typically using any of a number of communications networks, including the public switched telephone network (PSTN); a cellular telephone or data network; a packet switched network (e.g. the Internet), or the like.
In response to receiving a message signalling an alarm condition, the monitoring center usually initiates a communication to one or more designated individuals, and/or to appropriate security personnel. The security personnel may be the police or employees of a private security company. The designated individuals may be residents at the premises or their designees.
Typically (but not always), the communication from the monitoring center to the designated individuals, is by way of telephone call to one or more designated telephone numbers—referred to as call-back numbers. Calls from the monitoring center to designated individuals may notify those individuals of the alarm condition, and confirm that a false alarm has not been signalled.
Calls to security personnel may dispatch appropriate individuals, such as representatives from the police, fire department or the like, to the premises for follow up.
Recently, equipping the premises with microphones and speakers to allow the premises communicate with the monitoring center has also become commonplace. Microphones provide audio signals, representing audio sensed at the microphone to the monitoring center, thereby allowing the monitoring center to monitor audio at the premises in case of an alarm condition. The speakers, in turn, allow an operator at the monitoring center to speak with the premises in real-time. Conveniently, an operator at the monitoring center may listen and react to events at a monitored premise, as they occur. For example, the operator at the monitoring center may speak to an occupant or intruder upon being notified of an alarm condition.
Again, such two way audio communication to the premises may be established by way of a telephone call to a designated call-back number to equipment at the premises.
As the foregoing illustrates, each alarm system may thus be associated with numerous call-back number that should be contacted, often in a particular order, upon occurrence of an alarm condition. Conventionally, the list of call-back numbers is established upon installation of the alarm system and stored at the monitoring center for easy access. Changes to the call-back number(s) may be provided by occupants at the premises, as required, for example by placing a call to an administrator of the monitoring center. However, ensuring that the call-back numbers are current, and allowing for their easy update remains a challenge.
Accordingly, there remains a need for methods and devices that allow for better call-back number provision and retrieval.